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2 months ago | 
behavioralscientist.org | Evan Nesterak
Every day, another feature of society is poised for an AI revolution. How will AI change (big inhale) our jobs, relationships, parenting, schools, art, music, sex, war, public safety, public policy, public transport, scientific research, health care, food systems, factories, banks, insurance, retirement…? We can’t answer these questions about AI today. We don’t know where we’ll end up. But we can get a sense for where we’re headed.
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Jan 22, 2025 | 
behavioralscientist.org | Evan Nesterak
Reading Oliver Burkeman feels as if someone reached into your thoughts and pulled out all the advice you’ve ever received on productivity, time-management, work-life balance, burnout, and well-being so you could get a clear look at it. With everything in the open, you’re able to see what’s useful and what’s junk. It feels like mental spring-cleaning. You can discard all that overconfident and contradictory advice you collected over the years.
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Jan 11, 2025 | 
behavioralscientist.org | Evan Nesterak
It’s that time of year again when everything becomes possible. You’re going to run that marathon, master that second language, or start playing the piano. In fact, you’ll do all three. There’s an energy this time of year, a renewed sense of momentum and hope. Unless there’s not. It’s also that time of year when the expectation of reinvention and dramatic jumps can feel more like a shackle than a springboard.
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Dec 16, 2024 | 
behavioralscientist.org | Antonia Violante |Evan Nesterak
Welcome to our selection of Notable Books for 2024. Each year, we review hundreds of newly published titles covering the science of human behavior. Our goal is to select the books that educate and entice us, surprise and delight us, and leave us smarter, wiser, and better informed about ourselves and our world. This year’s list features 45 books, each published in 2024.
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Nov 7, 2024 | 
behavioralscientist.org | Evan Nesterak
“A thousand years of history and contemporary evidence make one thing abundantly clear,” write newly minted Nobel laureates Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson in their book Power and Progress. “There is nothing automatic about new technologies bringing widespread prosperity.
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Jul 30, 2024 | 
bookclub.behavioralscientist.org | Evan Nesterak
And we’re off! This week is the official start of Techno-Visions. It means it’s time to get reading, and that you can keep your eyes out for bonus content starting this week. We’ll also announce the expert conversation lineup soon. As we begin, I want to share an overview of this summer’s schedule and more about what you can expect from the bonus content, discussions, and expert conversations. I also wanted to point out something worth noticing in Vonnegut’s approach to this topic. Not signed up yet?
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Jul 24, 2024 | 
behavioralscientist.org | Evan Nesterak
We’re excited to invite you to join a new book club we’re hosting this summer titled “Techno-Visions.”We’ll read Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Player Piano, about a future society full of powerful machines, the special class of engineers who manages them, and the people at the mercy of both. The 1952 novel poses questions that we’re still seeking answers to, even more urgently in the age of AI, about what technological progress means for us individually and collectively.
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Jun 5, 2024 | 
behavioralscientist.org | Antonia Violante |Evan Nesterak
Summer moves fast. Schedules fill quickly. Backyard gatherings. Weddings. Reunions. A few choice weekends marked “Beach” on the calendar. The annual road trip home. But summer moves slowly, too. A calm morning sipping coffee on the porch. Sprawling out on a beach towel in between swims. Conversations during long evenings that seem to push night further and further away. Time seems to open up as one moment melts into the next, delightfully, unexpectedly.
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May 26, 2024 | 
behavioralscientist.org | Evan Nesterak
It was a clear, February afternoon along National Route 40 in southern Patagonia, a few miles outside a small Argentine town called Gobernador Gregores. To the southwest, the Playa de los Icebergs peered up to Cerro Torre peak, 10,262 feet high. To the northeast, the remains of a 150-million-year-old forest stood protected by the Parque Nacional Bosques Petrificados. Due north, hundreds of handprints covered the walls of Cueva de las Manos, as they have for the past 9,000 years.
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May 20, 2024 | 
behavioralscientist.org | Evan Nesterak
When I picked up Michael Muthikrishna’s book, A Theory of Everyone, I wasn’t expecting energy to play a leading role. But Muthukrishna makes a compelling case that energy should be central in how we understand ourselves and how we design our world. By energy, Muthukrishna means everything that helps power life—photosynthesis, ATP, fossil fuels, renewables, and, possibly in the future, fusion. Energy is “the single most important quantity in the universe,” he writes.
